China Opens Massive Indoor Half Pipe

China has unveiled a huge indoor half pipe located in the Chongli district which staged most of the skiing events during the Winter Olympics earlier this year.

Providing year-round training facilities for top freestyle athletes, the indoor halfpipe has been equipped with a TechnoAlpin SnowFactory that produces 1,000 m3 of snow per day, as well as TechnoAlpin TF10 propeller machines and a mobile pump station.

Indoor half-pipes are not new, in the 1990s the Japanese indoor snow company SNOVA opened more than a dozen indoor snow centres, each featuring a permanent indoor half pipe. In an era when snowboarders were still banned by dozens of ski areas, particularly in North America, these  centres welcomed an almost exclusive snowboarding clientele before freestyle skiing gained popularity.  Many SNOVA centres kept operating for more than two decades but most have now closed due to ageing equipment and in some cases declining popularity.